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After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

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Rios: Women, Gays Will Undermine Syria Effort

Sandy Rios of the American Family Association apparently thinks women and gay people can’t aim a Tomahawk missile. On her radio show she actually claimed that the “homosexual takeover” of the military and the presence of women means that our Navy ships won’t be effective in bombing Libya.

It’s getting more exaggerated. This is the nature of John Kerry, he always does this; he’s not to be trusted. This is the reason why I think we have to be concerned about going into Syria because the people that we’re looking at to lead us are untrustworthy people. There’s a second reason and that is military readiness. When I looked at those battleships going into the Mediterranean, supposedly getting ready for battle in Syria, I couldn’t help think about all the stories I’ve read about how women now are in the ranks of the Navy, getting pregnant at exponential numbers; when I think about the folding in and the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the homosexual takeover of so much of our military I’m not sure how effective those naval ships will be.

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when I think about the folding in and the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the homosexual takeover of so much of our military I’m not sure how effective those naval ships will be.

Not that the screed needs to be shot down, but…US military cruise missiles and their guidance systems are built by private contractors – General Dynamics, Raytheon, et cetera. Who have employed women for decades and openly gay people of both sexes for probably decades. All the ordinance we’ve been using in our wars, Sandy, for at least the past 10 years? Brought to you in part by womens and teh gey.

Evidently, the Navy brass hasn’t heard about these problems yet. May be she should brief the Admirals in the Pentagon and present her proof about the pregnancy issues and gay ship’s thing. I’m sure they will give her all the respect and attention she deserves.

In the 90s there were actually a few ships known as “love boats” because a significant amount of women came home pregnant. And there was an article in Stars and Stripes a while ago that the Navy does have something of a problem with unplanned pregnancies (in general, not deployed). But this isn’t really the military’s fault this time. It’s an outgrowth of the American obsession with abstinence-only “education”. The teen pregnancy rate in America is astronomical compared to other western countries. When you take the same group and put them in the military, it’s really not surprising that they aren’t responsible about sex.

I wasn’t really serious about the forced contraception thing (though it’s a nice concept in some sci-fi universes where the implants can be turned on and off as needed), but increased education about contraception would help. You’d just expect that 18+ year olds would know this stuff already.

In any event, the first order of business would be determining whether there’s actually a problem that needs to be fixed; to my mind, the answer is no. Pregnancy among the workforce (or spouses of the workforce) should not be classified as a “problem.” Its life. It’s what a lot of people work for. You organizationally assume its impact the same way you organizationally assume weddings and honeymoons are going to happen, the same way you assume your employees may (gasp! horror! woe to the employer’s schedule!) take vacation. If you see it as a problem rather than a reason you have happy productive workers in the first place, then you’re probably viewing your workers as cogs in a machine rather than living breathing humans deserving of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. You know, the stuff the military was built to defend.

The problem isn’t pregnancies, but *unplanned* ones, which can mean that the children are unwanted or the parents aren’t prepared to care for them. And single people becoming pregnant is more of an issue in the military than in normal jobs. Not just for the military as an institution, but also for the women becoming pregnant. The Navy isn’t even discouraging people from having families, it would prefer them to plan their children around shore tours.

She doesn’t have to worry about the Americans missing their targets. When the Americans go on a killing spree the body count can reach the tens of thousands in next to no time – and they’re prepared to keep shooting for years and years and years.

Sandy Rios is full of crap. Thanks to The Pink Triangle, we know the Truth® that The Gays are, in Fact®, too brutal and vicious.
I’m also having trouble figuring out how LadySoldiers is suddenly such a problem, considering there have been ladies serving in the Navy in various roles* for a while.

John Pieret“Um, the US Navy does not presently have any commissioned battleships. Normally that kind of error would be a small thing but for someone professing such expertise in naval readiness …”
Oh no! The Gays have their own off-the-books navy!

davideriksen, you must’ve missed the memo from ComPacUSCentMilLingAcroComEast* and the publication update to ACP249 US-Supp(M) International Standard US National Lingo and Handshake Procedures, or JANAP146(C) Field [and Stream] Acronym Formatting III: Formatting with a Vengeance. I can see you missing the ACP update, but JANAPFSAF3 should be common knowledge.

Modusoperandi, I see your TPS Report didn’t have the correct TPS Report Cover Sheet attached to it. Did you get the memo on that? I’ll email you the memo. And in future, if you could please submit your TPS Reports with the proper TPS Report Cover Sheets, that would be great.

timberwoof, I followed procedure. The 709-format TPS report and 740-format TPS Report Cover Sheet have been simplified by the PUSPSTTCSSRC (Pentagon and US Postal Service TPS and TPS Cover Sheet Submission Reform Committee, or, informally, “Puspisticserc”) and superceded by the new 718 TPS and TPS Report Cover Sheet Combination Report Form. Your confusion may be due to the fact that, as per SOP, we are temporarily using the 616 POL (Petroleum, Oil and Lubricant) Usage Report, the 228B Report Modifaction and Reporting Report and the 709 Triplicate Leave Request Form (with “Leave Request” scratched out and replaced with “Report Reporting Printing Error or Errors on have ensured that the second carbon copy was removed and disposed of by shredding, burning, pulping or other awesome way of getting rid of things) until the supply chain catches up with a sufficient supply of 718s for units and stations that require them, have been duly authorized them by USCentFormCom (open Mon-Fri, drive-tru available at S Washington Blvd location only, after 4pm phone Pentagon switchboard [703-545-6700], ask for “Wendy”. No fatties), have personnel qual’d on the requisite courses at Fort Logjam (or at their own home unit or next higher command via the [Unit Number Redacted]th “The Filing Dutchman” Mobile Administration Division or designated sub-unit [excluding the 1st “the Fighting Sub-Unit” Anti-Submarine Helicopter and Peter Lorre Fan Club Squadron]) and that have submitted the correct request forms requesting the forms.

Correction. That should read:
“…and the 709 Triplicate Leave Request Form (with “Leave Request” scratched out and replaced with “Report Reporting Printing Error or Errors on Form), “Triplicate” replaced with “Biplicate”, and having ensured that…” (corrections in italic)

Technically any ship designed to fight can be called a ‘battleship’ and it is used in the popular press as a synonym for ‘warship’. This goes back to the days of sail when the biggest warships were termed ships of the line and further specified by how many cannon they carried. It served to differentiate them from merchant vessels which often carried a few cannon for defense against pirates and competitors.

Of course nobody in, or around, the navy would call anything but a large ship, heavily armored, with really big rifles as a main battery, a battleship. Doing otherwise gets you a dope slap.

I wish the homophobes would get their story straight. One day gays are going to take over the military because they are super soldiers and inhumanly cruel to boot, according to that story the SS was full of the gay, the next day, the same people are rattling on about how they can’t shoot straight or operate military equipment.

This is what happens when the GOP and fundis fail to coordinate their message. Oh for the days when Carl Rove kept everyone on message.

Rios: “When I looked at those battleships going into the Mediterranean, supposedly getting ready for battle in Syria, I couldn’t help think about all the stories I’ve read about how women now are in the ranks of the Navy, getting pregnant at exponential numbers…”

That could be a problem, all right. If women aboard a ship on station off Syria began getting pregnant in exponential numbers, the resulting mass imbalance could cause the ship to list to port* and throw the systems that aim the weapons out of alignment.

*It would never list to starboard because that would submerge the right side.

@32 “Of course nobody in, or around, the navy would call anything but a large ship, heavily armored, with really big rifles as a main battery, a battleship. Doing otherwise gets you a dope slap”

What, not even a battlecruiser?
(yes, the last one was scrapped in the 1970’s, but the description is accurate.) What counts as a battleship was always a bit dicey, which is why the switched to saying ‘capital ships’, i.e. “the ones we don’t care to lose” be it a BB, a CV, or an SSBN.
Almost all naval classification is pragmatically flexible, and mostly seems to revolve around the rank of the commanding officer it rates. Historically, it was even less precise.
Today, frigates and destroyers are functional classifications, with no connections to the original functional classifications.

@35: “Sandy shoulda called them ships, “Dreadnoughts”; at least her nomenclatural faux pas would be in line with her self-imposed antique sexually repressive views.”

Technically, our last battleships were ‘Superdreadnoughts’. Which probably opens a whole can of psychsexual worms…

I’m sorry. I have an obsession with naval history and that entails a lot of trivia. thank you for bearing with me while i get a grip.

Technically any ship designed to fight can be called a ‘battleship’ and it is used in the popular press as a synonym for ‘warship’. This goes back to the days of sail when the biggest warships were termed ships of the line and further specified by how many cannon they carried. It served to differentiate them from merchant vessels which often carried a few cannon for defense against pirates and competitors.

Actually, not quite accurate. Ships-of-the-line of battle, IE Battleships, were limited to the larger warships of the age, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd raters primarily, though some 4th rate ships might qualify, especially in second and third tier navies. Smaller ships, 5th and 6th rate Frigates for example, were distinctly warships but were not ships of the line and would not have been referred to as “battleships.” Smaller, unrated ships, sloops, brigs, etc., were also still warships, but not ships of the line.

In the modern era, battleships referred specifically to the main, heavy gun, dreadnought class warships and beyond. Battlecruisers and smaller ships were found to be unable to survive a main battery duel between two forces of battleships. They had specific duties within such an engagement, but were in no way referred to as battleships. Aircraft carriers, which I assume Rios is actually referencing, were auxiliaries initially and then became centerpieces of the fleets, but were still not referred to as battleships. In our current forces we have those nuclear or fleet carriers, cruisers (sometimes referred to as battlecruisers), destroyers, and frigates, but nothing that anyone who even pretended to know what they were talking about would refer to as a “battleship.”